In this special tutorial, we will teach you how to create a creativewinged rebel poster design using Photoshop. This guide will give youinsights on how to merge different layers creatively, as well as how toadd extra details and “dirtiness” into a background to make it moreintricate and creative. Using these tricks should help you create afairly intricate and dramatic full color poster design of your own. Solet us start.

1. To make it easier for you to submit yourdesign to a printer, it is good to setup your document properly at thestart. So once you open a new document in Adobe Photoshop, try to beprecise with your measurements. Set the width and height according tothe correct dimensions of the poster or flyer print that you want. Use a high grade value resolution (300ppi or more) andif the printer is using four colors, change the color mode to CMYK.

2. First we begin by using a light grey color for the background. Then, wepaste in an image of a woman in a stylish pose. This will be ourfree-wheelin’ winged rebel. Position the image relatively at the center,compensating a bit for the wings that we are going to out later. Fornow, do not worry about the rough edge cut at the bottom.

3. This next step depends on your image. With the image selected go toImage -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast. If you got a fairlydark photo or image, you might want to boost the brightness and contrastvalue. If you already have an image that is too bright though, it mightbe good to tone it down a bit by adding negative values to thebrightness like so. Just set until you are comfortable with the detailand lighting of the image.

4. To tone down the red of our image a bit, we use a Photo Filter tobalance things out. Just go to Image -> Adjustments -> PhotoFilter and use an orange Photo Filter at 50% density.

5. Create a new layer on top of our model layer. Do this by pressingCTRL+SHIFT+N. Then using a couple of different grunge brushes paint out afew spots off to the side of our model. Use the same color as her dressand hair as appropriate. You can do this by just using the eyedroppertool to get the color.

6. Next, add a layer mask on the original model layer. Then using thegrunge brushes that you used before, paint some spots on the left sideof our model. This gives the impression that the model is beingdeconstructed (or reconstructed depending on your view).

7. Next, create a new layer on top of our background layer. Then, usingthe gradient tool apply a radial gradient with a dark grey-greycombination. Try to position the lighter grey spot at the model whilethe rest should be darker. This gives a more emphasized spotlight effecton our feature image.

8. Next, look for a nice Bokeh type image effect from the Internet. Thereshould be tons of free ones out there. Open one in Photoshop. Then pressCTRL+SHIFT+U to desaturate it.

9. Now, paste in this Bokeh effect image to our design. Position it abovethe gradient background. Then change its blend mode to Screen and adjustthe fill value to around 40%.

10. Now, create new layer just above the Bokeh layer. Use a large and softbrush to paint in a darker grey tint at the bottom of our poster.

11. Create a new layer on top of our model layer. Then using therectangular marquee tool create a diagonal 45 degree color block thatwill cover the rough cut edges of our model. Use a white to black linearcolor gradient for this layer. Erase the parts of the rough cut of themodel layer by selecting the area of the new layer (CTRL click on thethumbnail of the layer) and then using the eraser tool to erase therough cut of the model with that model layer selected.

12. Change the blend mode of this layer to “screen” and then reduce the fill percentage by 20%.

13. Create a new rectangle layer with a white fill and rotate it diagonally in the center of our poster like so.

14. Change your foreground color to gray, and your background color shouldbe black. Next, go to Filter -> Sketch -> Halftone Pattern. Use asize of 3, a contrast of 2 and the pattern type should be a dot.

15. Reduce this layer’s fill to around 60%. Then add a layer mask to it byclicking on the add layer mask button in the layers panel. Using abrush, erase part of the bottom left part of the layer to blend itcreatively at that area.

16. Create another new layer again by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+N on top of thebackground layers, but just behind the model layers. Select a hard edgedround brush and then go to the brushes panel. Click on “Scattering” inthe brushes panel. Set the Scatter to 1000%, Control to Off, count to 1and the count jitter to 100%.

17. Afterwards, just paint with this brush in the new layer. Do 3-6 passesof the brush around your poster design. Use a white color first, a greycolor and then a black color. Repeating it again around the design givesus more “dots” density.

19. Then, change the blend mode of this motion blurred layer to “Softlight” This gives us a very creative color lines effect over our designlike so.

20. On a new layer, create another rectangle. This time color it a darkyellow. Then press CTRL+T to transform and rotate it 45 degrees. Alignit on top of the halftone patterned layer we created earlier to get thisnice look.

21. Duplicate this yellow layer and paste it behind the first stripe layer at the bottom right like so.

22. Now, before we move on, we open a separate image document of a citystreet. This will be pasted into our poster design layer. Adjust theimage so that it is brighter and more easily visible. Do this by goingto Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast. Increase thebrightness and contrast valued accordingly.

23. Now, paste in the city image just below the yellow strikes and themotion blurred layer. Set its blend mode to overlay and reduce its fillvalue to around 40%.

24. Depending on the type of city image you pasted, it might be necessaryto erase some of the hard edges of the city with a soft eraser brush.

25. The background should be looking pretty detailed and intricate by now.But we are still going to add a few more special effects. Create anothernew layer just behind our model and color brushes layer and brush in alarge soft white round spot. This gives our model an additional extrahighlight.

26. Great! Now we will add some wings to our model. We are going to use a free wing image document from this great artist here.

27. We paste in one wing image to our model like so.

28. To integrate the wing better, we move the colored grunge brushes layerdown behind the wings. Then we create a new layer above the wings withjust a few bits more colored grunge brushes painted in. Finally, we alsouse the eraser set with a grunge brush to make it look like the wingsare also being constructed (or deconstructed) with the model.

29. Once done, let us add some more refinements to the wing itself. Withthe wing layer selected go to Image -> Adjustments -> Levels.Adjust the black point input to around 58 or to where the graph actuallystarts.

30. Next, we get a smoke image from the internet like so. Make sure thatyou get an smoke image that has a black background. Press CTRL+SHIFT+Uto desaturate the image.

31. Paste it into our design, behind our model. Change its blend mode toSCREEN to remove the black areas and blend it correctly. Position itbeside the model and near our white spot.

32. To still add more color variation, we add another color stripe, justlike the yellow stripes we created earlier. This time we put in on top,and it should also overlap the yellow layer stripe there for aninteresting yellow green effect. Adjust its fill value to around 45%.

33. If you look closely at our design, the bottom stripe seems to belacking in extra detail. We are going to use an image of the starcluster below to add some interesting spots into it.

34. So paste our star cluster image into the poster design. Desaturate itby pressing CTRL+SHIFT+U. Then set its blend mode to Exclusion. Eraseits edges with a soft round brush. DO NOT WORRY about the colors for nowas we will be dealing with the color blending later.

35. To merge parts of the star cluster and the lower part of our model, wepasted in some extra smoke images on Screen blend mode in this area. Wealso blurred it a bit with the smudge tool.

36. Then, finally we use a couple more light grey colored grunge brushes to complete the blending.

37. Then, we type in our text at an angle that matches the stripes. Makesure to use a very thick kind of font for this design so that the textdoes not get lost. Use a light grey or white color.

38. Just like with the girl model, we brush in some grunge brushes on topof the text. Then we create a layer mask and use a black brush to“dirty” up the text making it look like it is still being painted.

39. Finally, we add some extra black text below our main title.

40. This gives us a pretty decent design already, and you can stop here ifyou like the colors. However, we are going to make the colors look moreintegrated with each other.

41. First, create a new layer on top of ALL THE OTHER layers. Fill thiswith a bright yellow color (#ffff00) and change the blend mode to Linearburn.

42. Finally, create a new layer again. This time fill it with a lightpurple (#c87fc6) and then change this layer’s blend mode to Linearlight. Reduce its fill to 50%.

43. Lastly, create a new layer on top of this again. Use a blue color with alarge soft brush and paint around the poster design just like a border.Change the Blend mode to Soft light and reduce its fill to 63%.

FINAL IMAGE

Great! You now have a very detailed, intricate, creative winged rebel poster design.

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